Lenten Reflection Book 2015

Holy Week schedule (updated)

Come bless your life with this most significant and powerful week! Holy Week services at the CSC are ones you don't want to miss! We really believe you'll think it was worth it. And please bring a friend.

Palm Sunday - 3/29 - 11am & 9pm (9pm candlelight!)

Holy Thursday - 4/2 - 7pm

Good Friday - 4/3 - 7pm (NO 12:05 Mass & Soup)

Easter Vigil - 4/4 - 7:30pm

Easter Sunday - 4/5 - 9:30am & 11:30am (both in Graham Chapel)

Easter Vigil counts for Easter Sunday, so come on out for an amazing night!

You can safely park at Wash U for all of these services.

Student Leaders needed

Applications are now open to be a member of the CSC Welcome Team. It's an amazing opportunity to get involved with the CSC, step into a leadership role at the CSC, and share your experiences with the incoming freshmen. Apply here or contact CSU Outreach co-chair Bill Heisler (wdheisler@wustl.edu) with questions

Volunteers on Easter Sunday

If you can help setup Graham Chapel Easter Sunday at 7:30am or clean up after the 11:30am Mass, we would LOVE your help! Contact Mark (zaegel@washucsc.org)

Holy Thursday

Holy Thursday is coming up soon!, if you are interested in praying, reflecting, loving before the Blessed Sacrament please consider signing up for the Catholic Student Centers Adoration service from 8:30pm to Midnight in the CSC's Living Room. April 2nd.

Wilderness Retreat

****NO PREVIOUS CAMPING OR HIKING EXPERIENCE NEEDED ALL ARE WELCOME****

Come and discover your wilderness spirituality on this two night, three day backpacking trip, April 10th-12th. This is a chance to escape to the back country of Missouri, to experience and expand your spirituality away from the hustle and bustle of school, classes, homework, lab reports, roommate drama, clubs (the list goes on really).

Cost: $30 if you don't have a pack or sleeping bag,$25 If you have one of those items,$20 if you do have both backpack and sleeping bag.

Why Be Catholic?

Sometimes, when people learn that you are Catholic (or in my case, that I work for the Church on top of it), they might be tempted to write you off as foolish and naive at best or even narrow-minded at worst. Issues and hypocrisies like those noted in the New York Times op-ed below might come to their minds.

How could any intelligent individual participate in an organization like that? Not an entirely unreasonable question, to be fair. My response? In the words of Peter when Jesus asks if he too will leave Him, "To whom else shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." And I don’t mean eternal life as in whatever happens after death. I mean now. To where else would I go? Imperfect though it may be (it's made up of humans, after all!), the Church has given me the very tools with which I now challenge the Church to manifest its best self. And it is the wisdom, tradition, and community of the Church that time and time again has manifested the best in me throughout my life (almost in spite of me).

I'm not much of a St. Augustine fan, but I can really get on board with him when he says "The Church is a whore, but she's still my mother."

Amen.

You can’t get mad at me. St. Augustine said it after all.

These days, in a world of infinite options and instant gratification, the temptation is always there to jump ship. To run off to the next thing. To think that there is something/one better out there. To think there is something/one perfect out there that will never disappoint me and will always make me happy. Well that stinkin' thinkin' will just hasten the disappointment.

Jesus came and challenged the heck out of what people took for granted as Judaism. He was his own religion's harshest critic. But He was still a Jew. A good Jew. A practicing Jew. And He spent his adult life trying to help his faith tradition manifest its best self and re-discover the immense wisdom that is there and access to the divine that it could offer. Until it finally got Him killed.

So...when we have issues with the Church (as in this New York Times op-ed, which does raise some fair points), I'd say we’re in pretty good company when we are willing to go down with the ship or give our lives to help steer that ship as best as we can help steer it, trusting that, at it its best, it's a darn good vehicle to navigate the stormy seas.

The Official Mission Statement and Creed of the Catholic Student Center

Translated into several languages as spoken by our diverse and worldwide student community.

THE CATHOLIC STUDENT CENTER at Washington University is a house of Catholic formation and a community of hospitality to students of all faiths. The Catholic Student Center strives - through education, service, and a worshipping community that seeks to know and become Christ - to form students intellectually, morally, socially, and spiritually according to the wisdom of the Catholic Church, so that they become active participants in parish life and moral and spiritual leaders in Church and society for the 21st century.